Amphipolis Tetradrachm from the Parthenon Group

Triton XIV, Lot: 60. Estimate $200000. Sold for $700000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MACEDON, Amphipolis. 357/6 BC. AR Tetradrachm (26mm, 14.43 g, 7h). Head of Apollo facing slightly right, wearing laurel wreath, drapery around neck / AMΦ-IΠO-ΛIT-ΩN around raised linear square enclosing race torch; to inner right, small sphinx seated left; all within broad shallow incuse square. Lorber 42 (O23/R33) = Traité IV 1097 = G.E. Rizzo, Saggi Preliminari su L'Arte della Moneta nella Sicilia (Rome, 1938), p. 94, fig. 75, 4 = K. Regling, “Phigela, Klazomenai, Amphipolis,” ZfN 33 (1922), p. 75, 20. Good VF, attractively toned. A masterpiece of classical numismatic art. Extremely rare, only the second known from these dies, the other in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Münzkabinett (from the Löbbecke Collection).

It is rare in numismatic art that the quality of engraving approaches the artistic impression of major sculpture. The present coin, along with the few other known examples of the “Parthenon Group” within the Amphipolis coinage, represents perhaps our closest approach in numismatics to the finest art of classical Athens.

The Thracian city of Enna Hodoi (“Nine Roads”) on the Strymon River was conquered and re-founded by Athens in 437/6 and was re-named Amphipolis. The Athenian colonists were led by Perikles’ close friend Hagnon, son of Nikias. While Athens continued to issue coins that were the recognized standard trade currency of the eastern Mediterranean, with the traditional designs and style that had come to be widely accepted, the colony of Amphipolis was not so constrained by convention in the style of its coinage, and produced coins that come closest to representing in miniature the artistic style of Athenian sculpture of the period.

The coinage of Amphipolis has long been admired by numismatists. Catherine C. Lorber published her magisterial study of the city’s coinage in 1990, building upon the work of generations of numismatists, most notably the eminent Germans Kurt Regling and Willy Schwabacher. In her corpus, Lorber was able to publish a total of 112 known tetradrachms struck during the city’s autonomous period from 370/69-354/3 BC and to organize them chronologically with great precision.

The present coin falls into Lorber’s Parthenon Group (Group N), and is struck from her die combination 42, with obverse die 23 and reverse die 33. The only coin previously known from this die pairing is the Berlin specimen (Lorber 42a). One other coin is also known from the same obverse die, but a different reverse die: Lorber 43a = Leu 81 (16 May 2001), lot 158. That coin, also featured on the cover of Lorber's corpus, was described by the Leu cataloguer as “the most beautiful of all the facing-head tetradrachms of Amphipolis and one of the prettiest of all ancient Greek coins.”

The present coin, despite its serene beauty, emanates from a moment of great turmoil in Amphipolis. Philip II of Macedon declared war on the city early in 357 BC. The anti-Macedonian party, in desperation, dispatched a legation to Athens to ask for help. Athens refused the offer for reasons that are not entirely clear today. Philip promptly placed Amphipolis under siege and – aided by allies within the city – breached the walls and captured the city late in 357 BC. The coins of the Parthenon Group can be precisely dated to the time of these events (Lorber p. 52-53).

This series of Amphipolis’ coinage is called the Parthenon Group because the obverse head is inspired by the seated Apollo of the east frieze of the Parthenon (Lorber p. 20 and fig. 63). Lorber notes that the first two dies in the series (O20 and O21) are faithful to their sculptural prototype, but the following two dies (O22 and O23 – this obverse) are “freer and more individual” (Lorber p. 28). Lorber suggests that the reference on the coinage to a famous sculpture created by Phidias in the 430’s BC – harkening back to the city’s re-foundation by Perikles in 437/6 BC – reflects pro-Athenian feeling at a critical moment when Amphipolis desperately sought Athens’ military assistance. Philip, while he retained the Parthenon reference following his victory, introduced a subtle change to a “freer and more individual” style of Apollo head and at the same time changed the ethnic on the coinage from the Ionic form (AMΦIΠOΛITEΩN) to the Attic form (AMΦIΠOΛITΩN), reflecting the administrative language of the Macedonian kingdom and the language that Philip used on his royal coinage (Lorber p. 53).

This coin, one of 13 known tetradrachms of the Parthenon Group and one of only five in private ownership, represents the magnificent tradition of classical Athenian art, and, at the same time, reflects the rising power of Macedon.

We wish to thank Dr. Bernhard Weisser, of the Berlin Münzkabinett, for graciously enabling us to study the present coin in comparison with Berlin’s extraordinary collection of Amphipolis tetradrachms, including the only known die duplicate of this coin.